Winter Patriot Community Blog

June 1, 2012 - Rupert Murdoch is a bad man. His son James is also bad. Rebekah Brooks is allegedly bad. The News of the World was very bad; it hacked phones and pilloried people. British prime ministers grovelled before this iniquity. David Cameron even sent text messages to Brooks signed "LOL", and they all had parties in the Cotswolds with Jeremy Clarkson. Nods and winks were duly exchanged on the BSkyB deal.n Shock, horror. Offering glimpses of the power and petty gangsterism of the British tabloid press, the inquiry conducted by Lord Leveson has, I suspect, shocked few people....

June 1, 2012 - Flying Paper, a forthcoming documentary by Roger Hill and Nitin Sawhney, tells the story of Palestinian children in Gaza who broke the Guinness world record for most kites simultaneously flown. The film was co-produced with young filmmakers in Gaza. According to the film's website: Since summer 2010, we began working with a great team of Palestinian youth whom we trained through our Voices Beyond Walls youth media program to cinematically capture the culture of kite making and flying among youth and their spectacular record-breaking event, despite the ongoing blockade in Gaza....

June 1, 2012 - A senior Israeli officer has cancelled a planned visit to Britain fearing arrest for alleged war crimes. Major-General Doron Almog is the ex-commanding officer of the Israel Defence Forces Southern Command. He was invited to a fundraising dinner in London later this month but senior government officials advised him to cancel his trip. Despite the fact that the British government amended the procedures for the law of universal jurisdiction precisely to prevent such arrests, officials in Israel told Almog that they cannot guarantee that a warrant will not be issued for his arrest. He stands accused of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/9...

June 1, 2012 - "We are not ruled by murderers, but only-by their friends," Rudyard Kipling wrote a century ago. That the poet's stinging aphorism has become hopelessly outdated is made clear by a New York Times article detailing the assassination program being run out of the Obama White House. The lengthy May 29 article in the Times establishes that personally plotting killings and selecting victims occupies a great deal of President Barack Obama's time. The process has been organized as a weekly routine, with Obama heading so-called "Terror Tuesday" meetings of military and intelligence officials. Each week they assemble in the White House situation room to study mug shots and biographies of those on the "kill list", some of them minors and, in one case, "a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years."....

June 1, 2012 - In an amazing little essay ("A Game of Drones") , the Chilean journalist Ximena Ortiz puts all this in context. In her view, the United States is "enabled by a central idea," and that idea is what she calls a "precision-guided mythology [that] masks a brutal truth."She cites a Washington Post-ABC poll that shows 77 percent of "liberal Democrats" support stepped-up drone attacks. "Killing foreigners -- and a smattering of US citizens -- by drone remains popular," she concludes. "The truth" that the policy is infuriating Yemenis and Pakistanis and getting us deeper into conflict with the Muslim world is, par for the course, lost in the cultural cacophony. This mythology of precision, this Chilean journalist says, distinguishes us in our own minds from Third World people who torture, spy-on and kill in a much cruder manner. In the US, we're better. Our violence is precise and we employ it only when it's absolutely necessary. President Obama is playing the Precision Myth for all it's worth. As an important adjunct to the Myth of American Exceptionalism, it allows Americans to feel good about themselves as they get away with murder. It will probably get Barack Obama re-elected in an election offering bad and worse. May God have mercy on our souls...

June 1, 2012 - When the Associated Press revealed that the New York Police Department (NYPD) spied on Muslim residents of Newark and mapped out where they eat, pray and work, the reaction from New Jersey officials was critical. "What we are discovering appears to be an NYPD operation in our city that involved the blanket surveillance of Newark residents and workers based solely on the religion of those individuals," said Newark Mayor Cory Booker. "I know they think their jurisdiction is the world, but their jurisdiction is New York City," New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said...

June 1, 2012 -- Israeli airstrikes wounded four Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip early Friday, hours after an Israeli soldier and Palestinian militant were killed in an exchange of fire along the border. Witnesses said Israeli aircraft bombed an auto rickshaw east of Khan Younis. Medical spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya said four people were wounded, and two were in a critical condition...

May 31, 2012 - In this week's roundup of BDS news from around the world, another Veolia contract spiked - this time, in The Hague; more countries implement or consider proper labeleing of Israeli settlement products; a Palestinian author successfully campaigns US university press to cancel book publication because of inclusion of Israeli writers; and South African activists join global campaign to urge Red Hot Chili Peppers to cancel Tel Aviv show....

May 31, 2012 - An Israeli lawmaker who called African migrants a "cancer" during a 23 May demonstration in Tel Aviv that turned into a violent anti-African pogrom, has doubled down on her racist incitement by apologizing for likening African migrants in Israel to human beings. Miri Regev, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party, and a former official spokesperson for the Israeli army, made the comments in a 40-second YouTube video....

May 31, 2012 -Thursday ended with the fall of 61 martyrs in Syria, including 1 child, 2 women, and 14 people who were summarily executed , 11 were executed in Qosair and 3 in Deir Ezzor. 29 martyrs were reported in Homs, 8 in Aleppo, 8 in Damascus Suburbs "Daraya- Douma- Mouadamyeh and Bweda", 5 in Daraa,, 4 in Idlib, 3 in Deir Ezzor, 2 in Hama and 1 martyr in Hassakeh... Homs: Qosair: Alaa Mahmoud Raad, Abdul Hamid Rislan Idriss Matar, Abdulla Hussien Hasweh, Hmoud Mohammad, Abbas Mohebaddin, Mahmoud Sari Raad, Hussien Ali Mkhebier, Khadija Deeb Bouzan and Mohed Mohammad Al-Zahouri were martyred along with more than 100 wounded reported due to the continous shelling of the city...Daraa: Inkhel: Muhtaseb Abdullah Al-Abbas and Ahmed Abdul Kari Al-Naser were martyred under torture in the branches of the security forces, they were arrested on Tuesday while they were printing leaflets calling for a strike...Aleppo: Andan: 4 martyrs fell due to massive artillery bombing in the city...

May 22, 2012 - A prominent Palestinian writer who was jailed in Syria for nearly three weeks described the facilities as "human slaughterhouses," saying security agents beat detainees with batons, crammed them into stinking cells and tied them to beds at night. Salameh Kaileh, 56, was arrested April 24 on suspicion of printing leaflets calling for the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is fighting a 15-month-old uprising against his rule. Kaileh's story offers a rare inside glimpse into the conditions faced by detainees held by the country's feared security services... "I felt I was going to die under the brutal, savage and continuous beating of the interrogators, who tied me to ropes hung from the ceiling," said Kaileh, a soft-spoken man with a shock of white hair who appeared frail, barely able to stand on his feet...

May 22, 2012 - The cancelation of the Manchester launch of Leila Khaled: Icon of Palestinian Liberation has only brought the book broader publicity, said author and Electronic Intifada contributor Sarah Irving in an interview yesterday. The biography has received unexpected attention after a phone harassment campaign led to the cancelation of its 24 May launch at a Manchester bookstore. Another Manchester launch has been scheduled for 25 May at the Manchester Digital Laboratory....

May 22, 2012 - On 15 May 2012, on behalf of B'Tselem, Attorney Gabi Lasky, filed an appeal to the State Attorney against the decision by the Central District Attorney's office to close the investigation into the fatal shooting of Firas Qasqas by reserve-duty soldiers on 2 December 2007. The appeal was submitted after an examination of the material from the investigation into this case revealed that there is concrete evidence that necessitates an indictment for the negligent shooting of Qasqas, and that the decision to close the case is patently unreasonable and should be reversed....

May 22, 2012 - At a water conference on Monday, organized by the Technical University of Palestine, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Palestinian Water Authority, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said a strategic vision and a long-term plan was needed to resolve the crisis. The Conference Chair, Rahil Mahmoud, said that Palestinian farmers should be supported, and that water shortages were a political issue since Israel controls 85% of water resources in the West Bank....

May 22, 2012 - On the last day of the NATO summit in Chicago, the bloc's leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to ending the war in Afghanistan in 2014 and vowed support to the Afghans. But is it going to be the end of the occupation? Afghanistan dominated the two-day summit in Chicago that brought together more than 50 nations, including 28 NATO countries, as well as the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, and Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari. The alliance declared in a summit communique' that while NATO will maintain a significant presence in Afghanistan after 2014, "this will not be a combat mission.''....

Tuesday, May 22, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, rumors abound that relatives of Nouri al-Maliki savagely attacked the nephew of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Senate Subcommittee says no more money for training Iraqi police, there are said to be over 160 MPs willing to vote no-confidence in Nouri, in response Nouri targets Iraqiya, and more...In Iraq, a disturbing video -- disturbing for content, disturbing for the story and details that supposedly surround it -- has emerged in Iraq. This gruesome YouTube video shows a young man bruisded and battered on his knees, his legs, his back, his shoulders, his buttocks, his arms his lips, his stomach . . . The young man is said to be Ammar Hassan Acikr who is the nephew of Ibrahim al-Jaafari who was prime minister of Iraq and now leads the National Alliance. Also making the video news worthy is the claim that his attackers were either relatives of or employees of current prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, the current prime minister...Still on violence, AFP reports that two Baquba bombings have claimed 6 lives (four were children) today as the home of a Sahwa was bombed first and then the home of a displaced Shi'ite family....

May 22, 2012 - Chicago police have an odious reputation for brutality. It's well deserved. On Sunday, it showed up forcefully. The whole world watched. Baton-wielding cops confronted protesters violently. Official policy is swing first, ask questions later, and blame victims for police thuggishness. More on that below. On May 9, a National Writers Union (NWU) Chicago Chapter press release said: "In 1968, the Democratic Party came to the City to nominate a president. What happened then became a part of Chicago's history: a massive public uprising of protest against an unjust war and a corrupt political system that created a massive local reaction within the City's police department. Violence and chaos resulted."...

May 22, 2012 - A devastating suicide bomb in the Yemeni capital, Sana'a, may have grabbed international media headlines and highlighted known security problems, but ordinary people are quietly fighting more mundane battles to make ends meet. Three months after Yemen's new government took office, frustration is growing, with people in Sana'a saying the pace of economic reform is not fast enough... Nuha El Arashi, a college student, told IRIN: "We can barely afford our necessities. Before, it was easy to afford things like milk, bread, water, and vegetables. Nowadays we can hardly afford these, and we avoid all the luxuries. Before, it was cheap and easy to get around in a taxi, but fares have now doubled because the cost of fuel is so high."...